232 



THE AMEEICAN BEE JOURNAL AND GAZETTE. 



Honey in Ancient Times. 



The Hebrews, the Greeks and the Eomans 

 appear to have used honey exclusively for the 

 purposes for which we now employ sugar. A 

 Hebrew writer who lived about the time of the 

 rebuilding of the temple oi Jerusalem, enumer- 

 ates honey among the necessaries of life. 

 Horace, Pliny and Martial, state that the epi- 

 cures of Rome mixed honey with their wines, 

 ragouts and soups. Honey is not mentioned by 

 them as a sweetening ; though Galen, Pliny, 

 and a few other authors allude to saccanon as a 

 white chrystallized gum. obtained from an 

 Indian reed This was in reality sugar. It 

 Was used onlj'- as a medicine, and was brought 

 to Eome in pieces of the size of a nut. 



Sugar did not become generally known till 

 the Arabians carried their victorious arms into 

 the western regions, and introduced it in the 

 various countries they subjected to their sway. 

 The first writers by whom sugar, as such, is 

 mentioned, lived in the time of the crusades. 

 Albert of Aix states that the soldiery when near 

 Tripoli, in Syria, pulled up the sweet stalks of a 

 reed grown the«-e abundantly in the fields, and 

 called zucra. Its wholesome juice refreshed 

 them, and was so grateful to their taste that 

 they were incessantly sucking it. This valua- 

 ble plant was diligently cultivated every year. 

 When ripe for harvest, the natives crushed the 

 reeds in a mortar, pressed out the juice, and 

 preserved it in vessels till it became thick and 

 granulated, and resembled snow or salt in its 

 whiteness. 



In the year 1306, when Samido compiled his 

 Mysteries of the Crusaders, the sugar cane was 

 not yet cultivated in Sicily, though it was then 

 already grown extensively in the Morea, in 

 Cyprus, and Rhodes. A century later it had 

 become so common in the island of Sicily, that 

 the infant Don Henry of Portugal readily ob- 

 tained there a supply of plants lor its introduc- 

 tion in Madeira. From heie and from the Ca- 

 naries it was carried to America, where it has 

 been so extensively cultivated that the Euro- 

 pean planla'ions Wv;.e speedily abandoned, and 

 America now supplies with sugar not only 

 nearly all Europe, but a large portion of Asia 

 also. The sugar cane was first brought to the. 

 western hemisphere by the Spaniards. 



Bees in Poland. 



No country in Europe produces so much 

 honey as Poland. For many years bee-culture 

 has there been one of the chief branches of eco- 

 nomical industry. You will there find many 

 humble cottages with a small spot of ground ad- 

 joining on which from fifty to sixty hives are 

 placed; and there are numerous landed proprie- 

 tors who have thousands ofhives on their estates. 

 Many cultivators there realize an annual product 

 of two thousand barrels of honey, weighing from 

 400 to 500 pounds each. The profits of bee- 

 cuiture pay all their taxes, defray all their 

 househould expenses, and enable them to make 

 ample provision for their children. Large 

 quantities of honey are annually exported, and 

 the confectioners of neighboring countries are 

 in large measure dependent on Poland for their 

 needed supplies. 



[For the Aroerican Natnralist.l 



The Wild Pee Tribe. 



It is well known tlint the Queen Humble Bee 

 winters under the moss or in her old nest. 

 During the present month (May) her rovings 

 ecm to have a more definite object, and she 

 seeks some deserted mouse nest or hollow in a 

 Sfree or stump, and there stows away her pellets 

 of pollen containing two or three eggs apiece, 

 which late in the summer are to form the nu- 

 cleus of a well appointed colony. 



The carpenter bei's, Ceratina and Xylocopa, 

 the latter of which is found in almndnnce south 

 of New England, is busy in refitting and tun- 

 nelling out the hollows of the grape : while the 

 Ceratina hollows out the stem of the elder or 

 blackberry. This little upholsterer bee carpets 

 her honey-tight apartment, storing it with food 

 for her young, and later in the season, in June, 

 several of these cartridge-like cells, whose silken 

 walls resemble the finest and most delicate 

 parchment, may be found in the hollow stems of 

 these plants. The Mason Bee (Oxmia) places 

 her nest in a more exposed site, building her 

 earthen cells of pellets of moistened mud, either 

 situated under a stone or in some more sheltered 

 place, for instance in a deserted oak-gall, 

 ranging half a dozen of them side by side along 

 the vault of this strange domicile. ]\I('anwhile 

 their more lowly relatives, the Andrena and 

 Halictus bees, are engaged in tunnelling the 

 side of some sunny bank or path, running long 

 galleries under ground, sometimes for a foot or 

 more, at the farthest end of which are to be 

 found in summer, little earthen urn-like cells, 

 in which the grubs live upon the pollen stored 

 up for them in little balls of the size of a pea. 



A. S. P. 



[For tlie American Boc Journal ] 



Wintering Bees. 



I send a statement showing how_ bees have 

 wintered at St. Charles, Kane county, Illinois. 



One hundred and thirty five stocks kept in a 

 cellar, with the slals removed ofi" the holes in the 

 honey boards and with the summer entrance 

 open ; none were lost. 



One hundred and thirty-five kept in a cellar 

 ceiled inside of the stone walls and floor laid : 

 none lost. 



One hundred and thirty kept in a brick house 

 built with double walls, the space filled with 

 sawdust, cement floors ; none lost. 



Twelve stouks kept in a cellar, with water 

 frozen in the room lor twenty days ; none lost. 



Thirty seven kept in a cellar with vegetables 

 in the same room ; none lost. 



The bees hatched more young than they lost 

 of old ones. They were housed in the 20th of 

 November and set out on the first of April. 



They worked three days on rye flour, then 

 on the wild willow, soft maple, and some other 

 flowers. On the 10th on poplar and cotton 

 wood ; and now on gooseberries, currants, gol- 

 den willow, and other wild flowers. 



From the 1st to the 10th of May the bees stored 

 honey fiom each set of flowers named The 

 usual proportion of stocks were lost of thoso 

 tried to be wintered on their summer stands. 



J. JVI. Marwin. 



